Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University,
Tel.+81-78-803-6257

This computer was implemented by Kazuo Taki, Yukio Kaneda and others of Kobe University in 1978 - 1979, using a microprogrammed Lisp interpreter on bit-sliced processors (AMD 2903s), aiming for fast execution of Lisp expressions. The system was in fact the first high speed Lisp Machine in Japan. The machine was named FAST LISP.

It consisted of a processor module and a memory module of 64K 32 bit words, and had an LSI-11 as the front end interface.

The execution speed of FAST LISP for problems of the second Lisp contest was slightly slower than Lisp processors on mainframes such as HLISP and OLISP, even though FAST LISP was an interpreter. A Lisp
compiler, implemented after the contest, recorded much faster execution.

The basic architecture of FAST LISP was followed by the later Lisp Machines, like FACOM α or ELIS. FAST LISP is being exhibited at the entrance lobby of the Graduate School of System Informatics.